7 Great Innovators in Archaeology

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7 Great Innovators in Archaeology

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Sir W. M. Flinders Petrie (1853-1942)Petrie came from an exploring background: His grandfather was a British navigator who was the first to circumnavigate Australia. Petrie's archaeological pursuits took him to Egypt, and he was the first person to hold a chair in Egyptology in Britain, at University College London. Later he worked in Palestine. A pioneer in using the scientific method in archaeology, especially in categorizing artifacts, Petrie was the first to match pottery types with the distinct cultures and time periods found in different strata of a dig, in order to reconstruct the history of a site. Called seriation (comparison of different levels, or stratigraphy), this approach allowed archaeologists to establish relatively accurate chronologies before the advent of carbon dating, and is still used today in digs until viable carbon-containing material is unearthed. Filled with ancient Egyptian artifacts, the Petrie Museum at University College London is named after him.PHOTOGRAPH BY TIME LIFE PICTURES VIA GETTY IMAGES

Sir Mortimer Wheeler (1890-1976)Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Wheeler was an early advocate of archaeology as science and emphasized the importance of documenting the stratigraphic record. He also originated the use of the box-grid (leaving unexcavated areas between excavation squares, thus leaving some of the original stratigraphy intact) and the three-dimensional grid for reporting the location of finds (which is still in use today, though not exclusively), while his colleagues were still focused on finding pretty objects. He worked widely in the U.K., as well as in France and India. As Director-General of Archaeology in India, he investigated the Indus civilization. Wheeler also helped interest the general public in archaeology through his many popular books and appearances on TV and radio. He was knighted in 1952.PHOTOGRAPH BY POPPERFOTO, GETTY IMAGES

Dame Kathleen Kenyon (1906-1978)A protégée of Sir Mortimer Wheeler, Kenyon blazed trails as one of the first professional female archaeologists. Her focus on scientifically controlled, stratigraphic excavations brought academic rigor to the study of the Holy Land. In Jericho (1950s) and Jerusalem (1960s), Kenyon was the first to utilize careful scientific excavations to challenge many of the stories in the Bible. She also established the ancient age of many Holy Land settlements—for example, revealing that Jericho was first settled during the Neolithic period. Kenyon's excavations were important training grounds for at least two generations of Near Eastern archaeologists, both men and women, who spread her standards for scientific excavation to other parts of the globe.PHOTOGRAPH BY BETTMANN, CORBIS

John Lloyd Stephens (1805-1852)Stephens was an explorer, not an archaeologist, but he's a huge figure in the modern discovery of the Maya civilization. Named ambassador to Central America in 1839, he explored the region with artist Frederick Catherwood. Their book Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatán is a chronicle of their adventures and includes maps and detailed drawings of the ruins they saw. They were not the first to explore the ruins (reports of what might be there spurred their interest in the first place), but they were the first to document them in detailed writing and art, thus igniting the entire field of Mesoamerican (primarily Maya) archaeology.PHOTOGRAPH BY DE AGOSTINI PICTURE LIBRARY, GETTY IMAGES

Tom DillehayNow a professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, Dillehay was working in Chile in the late 1970s and early 1980s, during the Pinochet years, at a site called Monte Verde. The C14 dates he got were so early—at least as early as 12,500 years ago—that almost no one in the archaeology community believed they could be correct. While his dates are now widely accepted, some diehards still reject them. Dillehay's work helped disprove the Clovis-first model—that idea that the Americas were peopled no earlier than 11,200 years ago—and opened up a new line of thinking about the identity of the first Americans, and about how and when they arrived.PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN RUSSELL, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY

David StuartNow at the University of Texas, Austin, Stuart has revolutionized the way we think about the Maya through his spectacular ability to read Maya hieroglyphs. He began visiting Maya ruins at three years old, accompanying his Mayanist father Dr. George Stuart, a former National Geographic archaeologist. Growing up among the ruins, he started trying to decipher the glyphs while he was still a child, publishing a paper at age 14. By age 18, he had cracked a key portion of the Maya code and won a "genius" grant from the MacArthur Foundation. He continues as a top Maya epigrapher.PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY DAVID STUART